I remember Christmases when I was at war, two in Vietnam and one in El Salvador, saying without prejudice that it is just not the same celebrating that holiday of holidays with the locals, and with GIs just as lonely as one’s self.

This young soldier took turns at point with a good buddy of his, but the guys in his patrol liked him best because he was handy with the machine gun. They had been taking turns one day when his buddy was shot. It was a roll of the dice. If it had been him as pointman he would have been shot. The father spoke of how this buddy had died in his son’s arms shortly after being hit. His last words were, “Josh, I’ve been shot.” The father was reluctant to tell his wife about this incident. Mothers, you see, don’t mourn just for their own.

When the American commander of the strike force came back to his RTO’s location, he found him humming the tune to “Silent Night.” Smiling and shrugging, he knew young soldiers could be nutty and unpredictable.

Jesus is the reason for the season, and no government or contentious secularist can take that from us. Merry Christmas, my wonderful brothers, sisters, and children everywhere! May our Lord God Jesus Christ be with you all the days of your lives, and beyond!

The wall, with all 58,200 names, consumed my field of vision. I tried to wrap my mind around the violence, carnage and ruined lives that it represented. Then I thought of how Vietnam was only one small war in the history of the human race.

Mr President, no one has taken more health insurance policies away from the American people than you have! Since the implementation of Obamacare, over seven million policies have been cancelled, many of them being family policies, as insurance companies struggle to adapt to your “one size fits all” insurance requirements.

The rapid decompression was at 23,000 feet.
A side note: This isn’t terribly high in terms of being able to breath. At that altitude, a person would still have about half the oxygen present at sea level. Nevertheless, while mountain climbers have summited Everest (~29,000) without supplemental oxygen, to be sure, after 5 or 6 minutes, you and I, who haven’t trained to work in thin air, would be MUCH more comfortable and clear-headed breathing supplemental oxygen. And of course, the RD itself could cut useful thinking time in half.

I was a eight, just a few months shy of nine at the time my oldest brother was killed and my parents’ hearts were intractably broken. I am the youngest of their seven children, my only sister was the oldest, with five brothers in-between. Don was born on my sister’s first birthday, March 6, 1948.